Looks exciting... another one in the mix... any progress on this FridayMan?

Click to expand...

This is on hold until my fridge jacket arrives from the US. The larger drawer on the left will be doubling as a fridge slide (with removable top) for my 80L Engel. With the fridge being so big (it's a monster!) I don't have much space to waste, so want to make the drawer just big enough for the fridge with jacket on.

Forgot to say before - and I think it might be mentioned in that one... I'm going to trim a space in the top of the drawer fronts so you don't lose fingers when the drawer closes on you. I can talk from experience now... it hurts... a lot!

Ok so they're not that special - but I like 'em! If anyone else does then a word of warning... It's taken quite a while to source someone that can actually supply them. All distributers say they can't be got... manufacturer have minimum order quantity of 300 and the general consensus is that they just can't be found in the UK.

That said... the girl at the manufacturers (Weston Body Hardware) was a good giggle... Gail at FDB Panel Fittings was a star (trying to find me alternatives from Germany etc)... but finally I found a lovely lass with 20 or so on the shelf from another company

Lost half my pics due to sheer incompetence!
Got the first few though... cant take more right now cos it's parked down the road and the drawers are covered in boxes and "stuff" - the irony

First up - I finished marking and cutting the wings. I did this by drilling a hole in the end of a strip of wood and shoving a pencil in it. I then ran the other end along the edge of the LC marking out the shape onto another sheet of wood. Cut along the line then trimmed to the required width. They ended up looking a bit like this...

I decided I didn't want the wing hinges sticking up - so with a trusty chisel I cut out 2 layers of the ply to countersink them...

Obviously did the same on the tops to take the other end of the hinge fixings (lost picture and cant take another one now cos it's got carpet on).

Next they needed to be carpeted. So I traced a generous margin around the shape of the wings (and tops) ready to be glued and folded/wrapped.

Then using my trusty new spray glue from ScrewFix....

... and making sure I didn't glue over the bolt holes that would hold the tops on (with tape)...

I stuck the carpet on...

The little flaps of carpet are obviously where the hinges stick out.

I was a bit worried the wings weren't cut precisely enough - but that carpet covered every imperfection beautifully.

Now, I did say that I had learnt a cool technique for folding and sticking the corners. I thought it was true. I didn't. So what advice can I give for the corners?... erm.... practise first! Ok its not rocket science - but when you've cut everything with less than a mm margin for error - any bumps or sticky-outy bits from doubled up carpet can cause a real problem. Any problems I did have I solved with my trusty blade the next morning - and on one drawer front with a hammer! - yup - I actually hammered carpet flat - but it worked so all is well.

Next post will have the drawer fronts and the almost finished product - just need to retake the pics
Quick tip... don't delete them from your camera card until you're sure you have them elsewhere!!!!!!

Looked into "proper" auto carpet but in the end popped into a local small carpet shop and asked what he had laying around that was thin and hard wearing. Got almost a full roll for a few quid

Its got a thin foam back so it's not as foldy as auto carpet - but worked a treat in the end and looks great.... and I had oodles left over so carpeted the inside of the drawers too (not stuck down) - stopped any rattling of stuff inside the drawer - and when it gets dirty from tools and stuff I can just swap out the carpet. And of course I've got enough spare to re-do the fronts or tops when I damage them

Got more pics.... a lot more pics... too many pics.... gonna bore ya - but you're getting them anyway

Took the whole unit out, hoovered up all sawdust, bits of metal, crumbs and something else that made a cool noise as it went into the hoover ... then put it all back fixing it down properly and tightening everything up fully for the first time!

I'll start with the drawers... here's a one...

... and from a different angle...

As you can see they have more screws than needed - and furniture blocks underneath too. The excessive screws were just to make sure and the block were really to help me keep things in place while I put them together (no bench and only one pair of hands!) - cant hurt being extra tough though.

Check out that drawer front!!!!! That's got 8 screws going straight through the front holding it onto the drawer!
Screwed the screws almost all the way in, cut a tiny slit in the carpet just big enough for the head, then screwed it all the way in to countersunk. Quick rub of the carpet with my thumb and the slit sealed up prefect. Never know they were there

The handles were a problem. As I suspected they were made for metal doors no thicker than a gnats forearm! Problem was that even if I could get them to clamp onto the 18mm ply (wasn't going to happen), the slam latch bolt would never reach the hole in the cross bar it was supposed to latch into.

In the end I decided to take a couple of layers off of the ply the shape of the handle to truly countersink the whole unit into the front. This gave me just enough depth so the slam bolt was sticking far enough through to reach the hole. I had to "move" my holes in the bar forward a bit - but I got there. Had to get some longer bolts for the clamps too - and stopped them collapsing when I tightened them by chucking a nut on the other side of the plate - not ideal but plenty strong enough.

Here's the back of the handle setup... oh.. I "moved" that hole in the drawer bottom too - it's centred now ...

... and a better shot of the countersunk unit... the carpet really helps to make it look neat...

Carpeted them up of course... but as I had measured everything with no margin for error (and then made lots of errors) things were obviously going to be really really tight between the fronts and the tops. Got round it with a cool little trick. Didn't want the carpet in the joint between the front and the drawer - but didn't want to cut the carpet so it was just stuck to the top with no wrap - so I took off a layer or two of ply just at the top where the drawer sides meet the front - tucked and glued the carpet into the space and hey presto - the carpet doesn't get pushed off when the drawer closes - and the joint is still tight

Next up is what keeps them closed... after a bit of faffing about finally managed to mark up where the holes needed to be and spent many hours drilling and filing away to make them... with only an inch filing action it took a while - but got there in the end

You can see I'm getting a little bit of rub from the box section runners on the walls... but after a bit of jiggling about it's smooth enough to be happy. One rubs more than the other but even when fully loaded with tools and any other heavy stuff I could find they run perfectly

You can see there's a couple of places where I missed with the carpet glue so need to tidy those up.

Realised I didn't need the back stop after all because the fronts drop lower than the bar and close onto it nicely. Left it in there though because... erm... hmmm... don't know actually - maybe I'll take that out

Now this didn't go quite according to plan. What I really wanted was to bolt the tops down using the same trick as I did with the drawer front screws. That is, bolt in, slit carpet and hide them. Found some nice flat head countersunk (allen key) machine screws that would have been perfect - but once I had the carpet on the tops they were about 5mm too short - just couldn't get a nut on the other end!

So after a lot of searching I finally decided to try some roofing bolts. Basically I got impatient. Chucked one in - slit the carpet - and obviously there was no chance I was going to hide a hole that size. Worse, I was clearly going to pull it all up any time I slid something into the back.

So, in the end, because it was late, dark and cold I just chucked them in leaving them exposed. They don't look too bad but I would have preferred to have them hidden. As it turns out though - I obviously got an uneven spray of glue on one of the tops and a load soaked through ... it's left a mark on the centre edge of the right hand top at the front (you'll see it) - but it does mean I will probably re-cover them at some point and I can replace the bolts then - if I haven't stopped being a girl and realise it really doesn't matter

The little flaps are where the hinges are hiding countersunk into the tops and wings...

... haven't decided what to do with them yet

I did think to make sure the whole unit was short enough to allow the back seats to still recline to a comfortable angle though...